FAA delays closing towers at Tweed New Haven, other airports

Mark Zaretsky

Published 12:00 am, Friday, April 5, 2013

Photo: AP

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FILE - In this March 7, 2013 file photo, a small plane takes off past the control tower at Troutdale Airport in Troutdale, Ore. Starting this weekend, control towers at scores of small airports are to begin shutting down because of government-wide automatic spending cuts. But federal officials insist the closures won't compromise safety, and there's evidence that some of the closures may even make economic sense. (AP Photo/Don Ryan) less

FILE - In this March 7, 2013 file photo, a small plane takes off past the control tower at Troutdale Airport in Troutdale, Ore. Starting this weekend, control towers at scores of small airports are to begin ... more

Photo: AP

FAA delays closing towers at Tweed New Haven, other airports

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NEW HAVEN -- Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, five other small Connecticut airports and a total of 149 across the U.S. received short reprieves from the budget-cutting closures of their control towers Friday, learning that the Federal Aviation Administration has delayed the move until June 15.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., hailed the move but said he will continue to work with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., to reach a bipartisan measure to eliminate the "contract tower" closures and associated layoffs of air traffic controllers working for private companies on contract with the FAA.

"The announcement is good news, but this is definitely not a reversal of this misguided decision," Blumenthal said. "So there's no reason to rest in the effort to keep open the control towers."

Blumenthal said there are other funds within the FAA budget "that could be used" and "that is our goal. We hope to have an announcement shortly ... I'm very hopeful that we'll attract a lot of bipartisan support."

He said that announcement could come "as early as next week or the week after."

The FAA has announced March 22 that the towers would close beginning this Sunday and Tweed later learned that its tower was slated for closure on May 5. The other Connecticut control towers slated to close are at Bridgeport's Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Hartford Brainard Airport, Waterbury-Oxford Airport, Danbury Municipal Airport and Groton-New London Airport.

The closures were slated to occur over a four-week period beginning on Sunday. That phased closure process will no longer occur, the FAA said Friday. Instead, the FAA will stop funding all 149 towers on June 15 and will close the facilities unless the airports decide to continue operations as a nonfederal contract tower.

As of Friday, "approximately 50 airport authorities and other stakeholders have indicated they may join the FAA's non-Federal Contract Tower program and fund the tower operations themselves," the FAA said. "This additional time will allow the FAA to help facilitate that transition."

Tweed is among the airports looking into paying to keep air traffic controllers working in their towers, said Tim Larson, executive director of the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority.

"I think it's good news," he said of the FAA's delay.

"We had a dialogue with them last week in terms of equipment and access to the tower ... without their support, and we're finding out that it's a pretty costly operation, almost to the point where we're looking to hiring ... or getting someone to run the tower ourselves to kind of bridge us between the possibility of them turning us back on," Larson said.

Tweed this week sent state Commissioner of Transportation James P. Redeker a letter "asking if there's any state money available to keep this thing alive," Larson said.

"It'll still be a safe airport," but without air traffic controllers "the sequencing of planes is going to slow down dramatically," he said. If things slow down too dramatically it could affect scheduled air service, Larson said.

The CEO of US Airways, the one airline flying out of Tweed, told Blumenthal that the eight daily US Airways Express flights between New Haven and Philadelphia will continue, at least for now, after the tower closes.

The FAA imposed the cuts as part of $637 million in budget cuts it was required to implement under sequestration related to the Congress' failure to reach agreement on a new budget.

The control tower at Tweed, which currently is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, is operated under contract with the FAA by Midwest Air Traffic Control of Overland Park, Kan. But the airport remains open all night and planes come and go from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when the tower is closed.